Information Systems in Organizations Essay

Information systems (IS) is the study of complementary networks of hardware and software that people and organizations use to collect, filter, process, create, and distribute data. The study bridges business and computer science using the theoretical foundations of information and computation to study various business models and related algorithmic processes within a computer science discipline. Computer Information System(s) (CIS) is a field studying computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their software and hardware designs, their applications, and their impact on society while IS emphasizes functionality over design. The history of information systems coincides with the history of computer science that began long before the modern discipline of computer science emerged in thetwentieth century. Regarding the circulation of   information and ideas, numerous legacy information systems still exist today that are continuously updated to promote ethnographic approaches, to ensure data integrity, and to improve the social effectiveness & efficiency of the whole process. In general, information systems are focused upon processing information within organizations, especially within business enterprises, and sharing the benefits with modern society. Human Resources Human resources is the set of individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector or an economy. â€Å"Human capital† is sometimes used synonymously with human resources, although human capital typically refers to a more narrow view; i.e., the knowledge the individuals embody and can contribute to an organization. Likewise, other terms sometimes used include â€Å"manpower†, â€Å"talent†, â€Å"labor† or simply â€Å"people†. The professional discipline and business function that oversees an organization’s human resources is called human resource management (HRM, or simply HR). Sales and marketing Sales is what you do and say during the one moment your product or service is being purchased. It’s confirming the payment options. Sales people have to feed the Marketing process and use the resources effectively that they had a part in building. There needs to be a partnership between the Sales and Marketing departments. Marketing is what you do (Sales people and Marketing people), before and after the sale. It is the strategy that will identify prospects that will lead to the sale. Marketing is learning about your client needs and delivering on them (or realizing there is not a fit with a prospect). Marketing is about building awareness and relationships – it’s everything that makes ‘the phone ring’ the first time and convinces past customers to buy from you again. Marketing includes anything that comes into contact with your customer. Finance Finance is the study of how investors allocate their assets over time under conditions of certainty and uncertainty. A key point in finance, which affects decisions, is the time value of money, which states that a unit of currency today is worth more than the same unit of currency tomorrow. Finance aims to price assets based on their risk level, and expected rate of return. Finance can be broken into three different sub categories: public finance, corporate finance and personal finance. Characteristics Of Information Good information is that which is used and which creates value. Experience and research shows that good information has numerous qualities. Good information is relevant for its purpose, sufficiently accurate for its purpose, complete enough for the problem, reliable and targeted to the right person. It is also communicated in time for its purpose, contains the right level of detail and is communicated by an appropriate channel, i.e. one that is understandable to the user. Further details of these characteristics related to organizational information for decision-making follows. Availability/accessibility Information should be easy to obtain or access. Information kept in a book of some kind is only available and easy to access if you have the book to hand. A good example of availability is a telephone directory, as every home has one for its local area. It is probably the first place you look for a local number. But nobody keeps the whole country’s telephone books so for numbers further afield you probably phone a directory enquiry number. For business premises, say for a hotel in London, you would probably use the Internet. Businesses used to keep customer details on a card-index system at the customer’s branch. If the customer visited a different branch a telephone call would be needed to check details. Now, with centralized computer systems, businesses like banks and building societies can access any customer’s data from any branch. Accuracy Information needs to be accurate enough for the use to which it is going to be put. To obtain information that is 100% accurate is usually unrealistic as it is likely to be too expensive to produce on time. The degree of  accuracy depends upon the circumstances. At operational levels information may need to be accurate to the nearest penny – on a supermarket till receipt, for example. At tactical level department heads may see weekly summaries correct to the nearest  £100, whereas at strategic level directors may look at comparing stores’ performances over several months to the nearest  £100,000 per month. Accuracy is important. As an example, if government statistics based on the last census wrongly show an increase in births within an area, plans may be made to build schools and construction companies may invest in new housing developments. In these cases any investment may not be recouped. Reliability or objectivity Reliability deals with the truth of information or the objectivity with which it is presented. You can only really use information confidently if you are sure of its reliability and objectivity. When researching for an essay in any subject, we might make straight for the library to find a suitable book. We are reasonably confident that the information found in a book, especially one that the library has purchased, is reliable and (in the case of factual information) objective. The book has been written and the author’s name is usually printed for all to see. The publisher should have employed an editor and an expert in the field to edit the book and question any factual doubts they may have. In short, much time and energy goes into publishing a book and for that reason we can be reasonably confident that the information is reliable and objective. Compare that to finding information on the Internet where anybody can write unedited and unverified material and ‘publish’ it on the web. Unless you know who the author is, or a reputable university or government agency backs up the research, then you cannot be sure that the information is reliable. Some Internet websites are like vanity publishing, where anyone can write a book and pay certain (vanity) publishers to publish it. Relevance/appropriateness Information should be relevant to the purpose for which it is required. It must be suitable. What is relevant for one manager may not be relevant for another. The user will become frustrated if information contains data  irrelevant to the task in hand. For example, a market research company may give information on users’ perceptions of the quality of a product. This is not relevant for the manager who wants to know opinions on relative prices of the product and its rivals. The information gained would not be relevant to the purpose. Completeness Information should contain all the details required by the user. Otherwise, it may not be useful as the basis for making a decision. For example, if an organization is supplied with information regarding the costs of supplying a fleet of cars for the sales force, and servicing and maintenance costs are not included, then a costing based on the information supplied will be considerably underestimated. Ideally all the information needed for a particular decision should be available. However, this rarely happens; good information is often incomplete. To meet all the needs of the situation, you often have to collect it from a variety of sources. Level of detail/conciseness Information should be in a form that is short enough to allow for its examination and use. There should be no extraneous information. For example, it is very common practice to summarize financial data and present this information, both in the form of figures and by using a chart or graph. We would say that the graph is more concise than the tables of figures as there is little or no extraneous information in the graph or chart. Clearly there is a trade-off between level of detail and conciseness. Presentation The presentation of information is important to the user. Information can be more easily assimilated if it is aesthetically pleasing. For example, a marketing report that includes graphs of statistics will be more concise as well as more aesthetically pleasing to the users within the organization. Many organizations use presentation software and show summary information via a data projector. These presentations have usually been well thought out to be visually attractive and to convey the correct amount of detail. Timing Information must be on time for the purpose for which it is required. Information received too late will be irrelevant. For example, if you receive a brochure from a theatre and notice there was a concert by your favorite band yesterday, then the information is too late to be of use. Value of information The relative importance of information for decision-making can increase or decrease its value to an organization. For example, an organization requires information on a competitor’s performance that is critical to their own decision on whether to invest in new machinery for their factory. The value of this information would be high. Always keep in mind that information should be available on time, within cost constraints and be legally obtained. Cost of information Information should be available within set cost levels that may vary dependent on situation. If costs are too high to obtain information an organization may decide to seek slightly less comprehensive information elsewhere. For example, an organization wants to commission a market survey on a new product. The survey could cost more than the forecast initial profit from the product. In that situation, the organization would probably decide that a less costly source of information should be used, even if it may give inferior information.